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Bad Pharma

Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors And Harm Patients

by Ben Goldacre

5.00 out of 5 (1 ratings)

Format:
Paperback 
Pages:
448 
Publisher:
HarperCollins Publishers 
Publication Date:
27 September 2012 
Category:
Manufacturing Industries 
ISBN:
9780007350742 

Description

'Bad Science' hilariously exposed the tricks that quacks and journalists use to distort science, becoming a 400,000 copy bestseller. Now Ben Goldacre puts the $600bn global pharmaceutical industry under the microscope. What he reveals is a fascinating, terrifying mess. Doctors and patients need good scientific evidence to make informed decisions. But instead, companies run bad trials on their own drugs, which distort and exaggerate the benefits by design. When these trials produce unflattering results, the data is simply buried. All of this is perfectly legal. In fact, even government regulators withhold vitally important data from the people who need it most. Doctors and patient groups have stood by too, and failed to protect us. Instead, they take money and favours, in a world so fractured that medics and nurses are now educated by the drugs industry. Patients are harmed in huge numbers. Ben Goldacre is Britain's finest writer on the science behind medicine, and 'Bad Pharma' is a clear and witty attack, showing exactly how the science has been distorted, how our systems have been broken, and how easy it would be to fix them.

Showing 1-1 out of 1 reviews.

  • Bad Pharma is actually a fairly scary book to pick up when you’ve just collected a prescription from the chemist but I’d heard a lot about Bad Science (which I’ve since read) and thought Bad Pharma would be incredibly interesting. I certainly wasn’t wrong.This is pretty much a damaging expose of the pharmaceutical industry’s involvement in modern medicine. Not necessarily their manufacture and distribution of tablets that do improve people’s lives every day but more the unnecessary peddling of drugs that either do very little or are no more effective than drugs already on the market. We’ve all seen the washing powder ads for something ‘new and improved’, only to find out two months later that it’s got one slight miniscule change. How ludicrous would it be if the drug companies did something similar and then got it under patent for 10 years so they could charge incredibly high prices for it? Well, they do.Delving into issues such as pricing, drug trials, suppression of research and trial reports, Goldacre uncovers how strong the hold over our medication is and calls for changes across the board, citing things that patients, doctors, governments, researchers and the drug companies can do.I’m sure Goldacre didn’t make any drug rep friends via this book – and I’m quite sure he doesn’t care. It’s refreshing to read something that is so focussed on what’s right, regardless of the waves it makes. That said, having now gone back and read Bad Science, it’s not really a surprise. This is an absolutely fascinating read for anyone who has had any involvement with our health system or ever taken any medication whatsoever. So, that’s pretty much everyone!

    5.00 out of 5

    donnambr

Reviews provided by Librarything.

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